West Bank levee integrity is in doubt, board says

After finding a log the size of a typical suitcase embedded in a levee under construction south of Harvey two months ago, West Bank levee authority inspectors warned that such woody debris could cause the levee to subside prematurely, though they emphasized they had no concerns the flood barrier would fail during a hurricane.

View full sizeSusan Poag,The Times-PicayuneThis 5-foot long log was unearthed from a levee under construction south of Harvey. The log, photographed Thursday, was found about 20 feet away from where another massive hunk of wood was discovered in June.

But after recently digging up a second log more than twice as big as the first, levee authority officials are questioning the levee’s structural integrity and are calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to re-evaluate it.

The inspectors broke a shovel removing the massive 5-foot-long log with an 18-inch diameter, and it took three men to load the roughly 200-pound hunk of wood onto a pickup truck, levee officials said.

The log was found Aug. 8 about 20 feet from where the first log had been unearthed near the crown of a levee being raised between the Hero Pumping Station and the Algiers Canal.

“When you start finding debris that large, you don’t have to be an engineer to begin questioning the levee’s structural integrity,” said Susan Maclay, president of the levee authority board.

A corps spokesman said the corps will address the discovery as part of a plan announced last month to respond to the authority’s concerns about woody debris in clay used to raise three sections of West Bank levees, totaling seven miles.

“We’re going to start doing some more rigorous inspections and deal with whatever comes up,” said Ken Holder, a spokesman for the corps’ New Orleans district office.

Holder said corps officials in charge of the debris issue would not be available for comment until Monday.

The levee where the logs were found has been seeded with grass, and little work has been done at the site in recent months.

Giuseppe Miserendino, regional director for the levee authority, said heavy rains in recent weeks have apparently caused the woody debris to pop through the levee’s surface.

He said the discovery of the two large logs as well as several smaller ones in such close proximity could make the state reluctant to accept the levee once the corps deems the project finished.

View full sizeSusan Poag,The Times-PicayuneThis piece of wood, about 3 feet by 2 feet, was removed from the levee under construction between the new Westwego Pumping Station and Orleans Village on the West Bank in June.

“Who knows what else is buried in there? They have serious problems with this levee,” Miserendino said. “My question is, where’s the accountability?”

Shavers-Whittle Construction of Covington, which has a $32 million contract to raise the nearly mile-long levee and a half-mile section of floodwall, did not return a call seeking comment.

The logs don’t meet corps specifications that permit isolated pieces of wood as long as they are shorter than 12 inches and have a cross section less than 4 square inches.

Noting that contractors are typically required to raise levees by compacting clay in layers about a foot deep, Maclay said it’s hard to believe that crews didn’t notice the logs, both of which are well over a foot in diameter.

“I can’t speak for them, but it certainly appears that they weren’t concerned about it,” she said.

In June, the levee authority singled out three West Bank projects where authority inspectors had repeatedly found woody debris in clay used to raise levees. And last month, the authority released some of the corps’ own inspection reports that showed one of the contractors repeatedly refused to cooperate with efforts to resolve the debris problem.

Col. Edward Fleming, commander of the corps’ New Orleans district office, announced a plan to address the debris concerns at the authority’s July 25 meeting.

The plan includes increased inspections and cutting trenches in the levees to see how much woody material they contain. Fleming also said a team of corps engineers from outside the New Orleans district would be brought in to evaluate the levees.

Levee authority officials have emphasized that they are pleased with the vast majority of the 50-plus corps projects to upgrade 66 miles of West Bank levees and floodwalls in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic flooding.